1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a camera that has an image-taking optical system and an image pickup device, and generates image data by forming object images on the image pickup device by the image-taking system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently digital cameras, which generate image data by forming an object image on an image pickup device, have been rapidly spread and have become smaller, thinner and diversified in their designs.
Many of such digital cameras have a protection member, for example, a slide door that opens and closes such that it opens a front of an image-taking optical system during image-taking operation and in the other times covers the front, in order to protect the image-taking optical system that appears through the front of the camera.
Usually, on the front of a camera, not only an aperture through which an image-taking optical system appears is formed, but a flash emission section for emitting flash for image-taking operation is also disposed. Accordingly many cameras have a protection member configured so as to open and close the front of the flash emission section as well as the front of the image-taking optical system (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Publication Nos. 2004-348059, 2004-348069).
Additionally some cameras have a self-timer mode in which actual image-taking is performed after a lapse of predetermined time, for example, 10 seconds after preparatory image-taking operation is conducted. Such a camera has, on its front, a self-timer light-emitting indicator such as a LED to notify a user that image-taking operation in the self-timer mode is about to be performed.
Here, in view of the design of a camera, it is conceivable to decrease the number of openings on a slide door of a camera by aligning a flash emission section with a self-timer light-emitting indicator. In this case, the slide door needs to have a wider opening for the flash emission section and the self-timer light-emitting indicator.
However, configuring the slide door to slide by its width makes the amount of slide large and thus the size of a camera large, which is contrary to the demand for a smaller camera.